We should have been children, did we not see that he did not mean to afford opportunity for the resumption of the debate upon this Bill. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer retains his present ideas, it is hopeless to suppose the Bill can be passed; and I see no reason why he should retain the unfortunate idea he has taken up. I will not prolong the debate; but I should not abandon the Bill hastily if the Government retain their opinion after Whitsuntide. We shall have had an opportunity of considering the matter, and we may take such measures as may seem desirable and necessary in reference to the subject.

Chancellor of the Exchequer to-night | passed, and the small amount of prothat in the slightest degree approaches gress which had been made with others. an absolute refusal to give the consideration required on behalf of the Bill. DR. WARD said, hon. Members had complained that the House had been taken by surprise in this matter, and that very short Notice had been given of the Bill. The question, however, had been before the House for the last 20 years. It had been brought forward by responsible Ministers of the Crown of opposite sides; and, under those circumstances, were they to be told that they were taken by surprise? Why, this Parliament had heard the arguments over and over again. There was no proposal in the present Bill which had not already been before the House. Surely the House had by this time made up its mind; and if the Government were in earnest in this business, it certainly must be within their power to give them a Saturday for the discussion of the subject. Hon. Members might say that if such a course was pursued the Motion would be againt the Irish Members. But if that were so, often as they differed, he could assure the House that they would pass the Bill in a proper form. What he wanted to impress upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer was this-The right hon. Gentleman knew he would have to give in at some time, that he would have to sacrifice a day sooner or later. Let him, then, make the sacrifice graciously now. Give them a day-say a Saturday; that would not sacrifice the time of the Government, but it would meet the requirements of this Bill.

MR. PARNELL: I do not join in the belief that has been expressed by hon. Members that it is hopeless to try to pass the Bill. The hon. Member for Ros

MR. SHAW: I think we need not continue the debate further, especially after the appeal to the Government by the noble Lord. I shall, therefore, ask permission to withdraw the Motion. Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

THE "HOME RULE" PARTY.

QUESTION.

SIR JULIAN GOLDSMID: I beg to ask the hon. Member for Cork County

Mr. Shaw) the Question of which I have given him private Notice, Whether we may in future look to him as the Leader of that section of the House below the Gangway, called the Home Rule Party?

MR. SPEAKER: The Question of

the hon. Baronet does not refer to any Bill or Motion before the House, and cannot, therefore, be put.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

common (The O'Conor Don) has adopted INDIA - EAST INDIA REVENUE AC

a courageous course in persevering with the measure for a while longer. At the same time, I do not agree that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has done everything that is required of him. The hon. Member for Roscommon has asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer to give a day for the resumption of the debate, and he did not ask for the day to be mentioned at the present moment, but what was the reply? The Chancellor of the Exchequer went over a long list of Bills introduced by the Government, and he pointed out how very few had been

The Marquess of Hartington

COUNTS-FINANCIAL STATEMENT.

COMMITTEE. [FIRST NIGHT.]
Order for Committee read.

MR. E. STANHOPE, in rising to move "that Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," in order that the House should go into Committee upon the East India Revenue accounts, said, that in making the usual Statement with regard to the finances of India he felt, looking to the numerous and intricate subjects with which that Statement must necessarily deal, and to the public interest

which the subject of Indian finance had | accounts for 1877-8 showed a gross Rerecently evoked, that no one who had ever occupied the post which he had the honour to hold deserved more the consideration and indulgence of the House. But whatever might be about to happen in the course of the debate, he felt it to be his duty, in the interests of India, to make as clear and as impartial a Statement as he could, even if, in so doing, he should have to trespass for some considerable time upon that indulgence. No subject was more commonly discussed in the debates of last year than the difficulty which some hon. Members experienced in consequence of the changes that had taken place in the form of the Revenue accounts. At that time he had pointed out that these changes had been adopted in consequence of representations made in the House at different times as to the desirability of assimilating, as far as possible, the form of the Indian to that of the English accounts. It was, however, quite impossible to deny that there was a great deal of force in the arguments of some hon. Members; and, therefore, he had endeavoured to prepare a Statement in accordance with their views. And before leaving the subject of the forms of accounts, he would remark that the India Revenue accounts were, as usual, converted in accordance with the conventional system of taking 10 rupees to the pound. The main reason for this was convenience. Indeed, it would scarcely be possible in any other way to make the accounts really intelligible. It would, of course, be open to the Government to convert the accounts at the rate of exchange of the year; but that would prevent any possibility of comparison, and would cause great difficulty in the presentation of Estimates for a coming year, as the rate of exchange itself would be a mere guess. It would, also, be productive of inconvenience in other ways for instance, if the Government should want to convey to the House a clear idea of the salary of a member of the Council, or other official, such salary would necessarily appear in varying amounts, whereas they all knew it was really a fixed payment in gold, quite independent of the rate of exchange.

venue of £58,969,300, and a gross Expenditure of £62,512,400, leaving a deficit of £3,543,100. This result, as the House was aware, was mainly due to the famine in Southern India. It approximated so closely to the regular Estimate which was given last year that there was no need for him to trouble the House by dwelling upon the details.

The figures for 1878-9, as set out in the regular Estimates, showed a considerable increase on both sides of the account. As he explained last year, this was mainly due to the incorporation into the general accounts of provincial income and expenditure amounting to about £2,000,000, and on the Revenue side, also, to the proceeds of the new taxation imposed last year. The gross Revenue was accordingly taken at £64,687,000, and the gross Expenditure at £63,236,000, leaving a surplus of £1,451,000. When it was remembered that, in addition to the expenditure which he anticipated last year, they had had an enormously increased loss by exchange, and had paid £670,000 on account of the war in Afghanistan, this result did not compare unfavourably with that which was predicted last year, or with the Estimate which he gave in December last, based upon such information as the Government then had. It was then calculated that, after payment of the war charges of the year, the surplus would not exceed the sum of £600,000. The real surplus had turned out to be £1,451,000.

He now came to the figures which it was his duty to lay before the House for the three years under review. The

The finances of India had been terribly affected by the recent famine. The direct loss of Revenue, owing to this cause, was estimated at about £9,400,000, in addition to the loans to Native States and the cost of a railway constructed as a famine relief work. Altogether, the Government of India believed that the disbursements necessitated by the famine amounted to no less than £13,000,000, the loss to the country being still greater. From Mysore and Madras, in which parts of the country the famine had made such terrible havoc among the people, the Government had, he was glad to say, received the most conclusive testimony of the great good effected by the charitable funds so largely subscribed in this country. Houses had been restored, thousands of horses had been given or let on hire, seed had been provided, and [First Night.]

looms, ploughs, and other implements have cash in hand for their immediate furnished in numerous cases. From necessities, but would be able to reduce Mysore the Government learnt with their remittances to this country by that gladness that the crops were in good amount. condition, and that there was a prospect of a speedy return to the former prosperous condition of that country. From Madras, for a time, the accounts had not been so good, but recent rains had caused a great improvement in the prospects of the Province; while it had been found possible to discontinue relief works at the end of last year. The Government of India, therefore, in framing their Estimates for the coming year, were able to lay aside any considerable anxiety with regard to the two districts to which he had referred.

But one or two difficulties had to be surmounted. They had to provide for what he was glad to be able to call the late war in Afghanistan, and they had to meet the enormous loss which would be sustained in the operation of transmitting to this country the full amount of £17,000,000 required to meet all their home payments during the year. The actual payments on account of the war, which had been brought into the accounts of 1878-9, amounted to £670,000, which was considerably less than the sum at which his noble Friend the Secretary of State for India (Viscount Cranbrook) and he (Mr. E. Stanhope) had ventured to estimate it in December last an estimate which was much criticized at the time. For the present year, the cost of those operations was estimated at £2,000,000. He had heard it said that this was an inadequate estimate, and that various high authorities shared this opinion. With all due respect to those authorities, he submitted that when their opinion was formed it was impossible for them to have correct data before them. The Government of India, who were responsible in the matter, had made that estimate, believing it to be a correct one, after full consideration of the circumstances in which they were placed by the position of affairs in Afghanistan, and the policy which was being pursued there. And, accordingly, it was arranged that a sum of £2,000,000 should, with the consent of Parliament, be advanced out of the Imperial Exchequer, no interest being payable, and re-payment to be made in the course of seven years; so that the Government of India would not only

Mr. E. Stanhope

In

The difficulty due to the Afghan War having been disposed of, there remained one other matter to be considered before the Estimates could be framed. He alluded to the import duties upon cotton goods. The House would recollect a famous Resolution in connection with this subject passed two years ago. consequence of that Resolution, the Secretary of State, not only in his own name but in that of the Council also, sent a despatch to the Government of India, in which he said that, looking to the condition of their finances, he did not think it probable that they would be able then to achieve the repeal of the whole of the cotton duties, but in which he also pressed upon their immediate attention the necessity of dealing with those portions of the duty which were undoubtedly protective in their effect. Upon those instructions Lord Lytton immediately acted, issuing a Commission to inquire into and investigate the whole subject; and, in the meantime, he exempted from the duty certain coarse descriptions of cotton goods, about which there could be no doubt as to the operation of the duty. That policy was universally approved. Since that time the Report of the Commission had been published; but to judge from certain minutes which had been delivered to the House, it had not been fairly studied by everyone interested in it. What did that Report show? It showed-first, that the extent to which the duty was directly protective had been very much under-estimated, and that it was desirable to extend, at the earliest possible date, relief to the suffering branches of the import trade in those goods; and, secondly, that that part of the duties thus shown to be undoubtedly protective could be removed without any very serious loss of revenue. It then remained for the Government of India to decide whether they would attempt to maintain a limit which was logically indefensible and practically utterly impossible to maintain, and so keep up the sources of irritation that existed between England and India; or whether they would follow the lines of policy laid down by the Secretary of State in Council, commenced last year, and approved